The present invention relates generally to cheese, particularly to sweetened cheese, and specifically to natural cheese which has been sweetened with a nonlactose sugar that is sweet to the tongue.
Cheese is a fresh or matured product, obtained by the drainage of liquid after the coagulation of milk, cream, skimmed or partly skimmed milk or a combination thereof. Whey cheese is the product obtained by concentration of whey with or without the addition of milk or milk fat.
Cheesemaking is a way of preserving milk. Cheese production converts a short shelf life product milk into a long shelf life product cheese.
Generally, cheese is made as follows: 1) Milk, raw or pasteurized, is warmed. 2) Starter cultures are added, followed by the rennet. The lactose in the milk is fermented by starter cultures (such as a lactic acid bacteria) to produce lactic acid and provide a fresh acidic flavor to the cheese. Further, the lactic acid helps to give the right texture to the curds and acts as a preservative. Rennet is an enzyme which coagulates the milk protein. 3) The coagulum formed is cut and stirred to release the whey and determine the moisture content of the curd. 4) The temperature of the mixture of curds and whey is raised, which is a process known as scaling. 5) The whey is drained off. Whey is typically about 93.3% water, 0.4% fat, 0.8% protein, 4.9% lactose, and 0.6% ash. 6) The curd is distributed into molds and left to drain naturally or under pressure (hard-pressed) to reduce the residual moisture. 7) The demolded cheeses are treated in specific ways which influence the final flavor characteristics (salted, waxed, pierced, smeared or mold-sprayed) and left to ripen--or mature--in controlled environments. For the purposes of the present invention, such cheeses are referred to as traditional firm cheeses, as opposed to spoonable cheese such as cottage cheese.
The combination of the amounts of starter culture and rennet used, the temperature and length of time they are left to develop, the required level of acidity and the way in which the curd is handled, together with the enzymatic action of additional bacterial or mold cultures necessary for certain types of cheese, lead to the development of a texture and flavor characteristic of each individual cheese.
All milk has significant concentrations of lactose (roughly 4-5%). Traditional firm cheesemaking utilizes cheese cultures to metabolize the lactose in milk. This results in cheese that has much lower lactose concentration than milk (usually less than 0.2%), and in cheese which has significant acid development (pH&lt;5.8). Such traditional firm cheeses with pH&lt;5.8 are, therefore, low in sugar and generally not sweet tasting. There are several Scandinavian cheeses derived from whey which are modestly or barely sweet tasting because they are high in lactose. There are also some of traditional firm cheeses with pH&lt;5.8 that have been produced with savory seasonings in them (e.g. Monterey Jack with garlic seasoning) and some that have been produced with fruit pieces in them, some of which fruit may have been sweetened in a sugar solution (e.g. Muenster cheese with sugared cherry bits, Monterey Jack cheese with apple pieces) but these traditional firm cheeses have not been produced with nonlactose sweeteners added directly to them.
There are some cheeses that have little or no acid development. These are cheeses whose cultures do not significantly metabolize the lactose in milk--or cheeses that have no culture at all. These cheeses are not sweet tasting despite the fact that they have higher concentrations of lactose than traditional firm cheeses because lactose is not very sweet tasting. These cheeses have not been made with nonlactose sweeteners added to them.
One significant barrier to the use of nonlactose sweeteners in the manufacture of high pH cheeses is the increased risk of bacterial growth. This undesirable bacterial growth can take two forms. It can be growth of undesirable pathogenic bacteria or it can simply be the accelerated growth of the cheese culture associated with the addition of sugars such as sucrose or fructose. In the former case, the cheese can be unsaleable because it is contaminated. In the latter case, the cheese can be unsaleable because too much acid has been generated by the metabolizing of the sugars by the cheese culture. This increased acid production is a major defect in cheeses that are supposed to be low in acid (pH&gt;5.8) Another significant barrier to the manufacture of such cheeses is that the addition of sugars tend to make the finished product more crumbly than it normally is, thus hard to package in a block form.
As to different varieties of cheese, and methods for producing cheese, please see the article "Cheeses", (the totality of which is hereby incorporated by reference) found on pages 802 to 856, Volume Two, Encyclopaedia of Food Science, Food Technology and Nutrition, copyright 1993 by Academic Press Limited.